Gallery Roll: September 2012

Welcome to Gallery Roll—CATALYST’s bike-focused guide to Gallery Stroll, helping you spare your feet—and avoid the nightmare of downtown parking—while getting your art fix. Pump up your tires, tighten your dork-straps, and get ready to roll at 6 this Friday night. This week features an alliterative array of A+ gallerys and a jaunt down to the banks of the Jordan River.

A. Our first two picks may leave your tummy rumbling, so pick up a snack before you roll out at the Avenues Bistro (564 3rd Avenue); here, you’ll find Brent Rowland's photographic narrative Homegrown, a series documenting local agriculture and CSA farming across Utah in 2012—with fewer than 2% of Americans farming for a living, Rowland hopes to challenge his audience’s ideas about farming with current images. Alex Adams’s Rise to the Challenge will also be on display, courtesy of Local First. This series showcases an annual event that occurs at the Downtown Farmer’s Market: three chefs from three local restaurants (this year’s challengers were Pallet, Finca, and the Avenues Bistro itself) receive ingredients, including an unusual, secret option— this year’s was purslane—from the Market, and are given 45 minutes to create a dish to be presented before a panel of judges.

Spaghetti in Tuscany, by Fahime AmiriB. Thus fortified, make your way down to our next mouth-watering stop: Alice Gallery (617 East South Temple) brings you paintings of local artists’ interpretation of their favorite food in Fare, an exhibition exploring the relationship of food to culture. The artists in this show—including Martin Blundell, Sam Wilson, Trent Call, Dorothee Martens, Anthony Siciliano, Shami Kanekar, Fahime Amiri, Kim Martinez and Joe Ostraff— were asked think about how their favorite food related to their culture, and how it broadly reflects issues of survival, comfort, religion, culture, economics, health, celebration, and family.

C. Head next to Alpine Art (430 East South Temple) where you’ll find the back-to-basics show Pen and Ink, featuring the work, among others, of artists David Habben, Chuck Landvatter, Gailon Justus, and Tyler Kirkham— who will illustrate just how versatile the same medium beloved by back-of-math-class doodlers truly is.

Blake PalmerD. Next, the Art Access Gallery (230 South 500 West) will re-orient you with their Off the Mapgroup exhibit, created in partnership with the Downtown Alliance. Last spring, 23 artists were invited to throw a dart at a map of downtown Salt Lake City: wherever the dart landed—within the boundaries of 2nd Avenue and 700 South, 600 East and 700 West—became the subject of their piece. Finished works reflect each artists style, and range in medium, embracing watercolor, acrylic, oil, prints, digital, and collage.

Staff and Volunteers working on the Urban Gallery at Neighborhood HouseE. Make your way to the Jordan River trail for the trek over to Neighborhood House (1050 West 500 South), where the providers of child and adult day care for the local community will debut a unique project in their outdoor Urban Gallery. This fifth installation (placed on the utilitarian garage doors leading out of the parking lot) is inspired by internationally renowned artist JR’s Inside Out Project, and will consist of a gallery of black and white photographs, taken by Michael Shoenfeld, of the House's neighbors from the surrounding community. The finished project is on view during Gallery Stroll in advance of Neighborhood House’s annual fundraising event, the Tent Party on Saturday, September 22.